Tag Archives: Floral Scoop T-Shirt

My Chevron Top And Seth’s Sunday Pants

I have a colorful new top to wear. For this one, I used my scoop tee pattern as the base. Then I added some gathers to the neckline. To add the gathers, I used this little tutorial.

I wanted a bit of a fuller sleeve on this top, so I drafted a new one. But I made it too full. So next time I’ll have to back off a bit on that. But I think it’s okay. The sleeve does lend a free, hippy-like appearance, but I’m alright with that.

I also added just a tad of width to the bottom of the pattern so that there would be more to gather in when I put the band on.

I really love this fabric. The colors and the huge chevrons just make me happy when I look at them.

Also, I finished a pair of Sunday pants for Seth.

He was already outgrowing his pair I made him a few months ago. I used my Oliver + S Art Museum Trousers pattern that I’ve talked about before.

I must say that I’m so glad I can sew for Seth. We really struggled finding pants that fit him before I learned to sew, but now I can customize pants for him to have them fit. For these, he needed more room in the crotch (even with the largest size in the pattern) so I scooped the front and back crotch seams.

I also added more length to the rise in the back. And he needed more room in the hip area, so I used a 3/8″ seam allowance there instead of the 1/2″ the pattern came with. Then when I got down past the hip, I gradually came in until I was back at 1/2″ seam allowance because he didn’t need more room anywhere else.

Scoop Tee With Super Shirred Sleeves

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I didn’t want that New Look pattern I tried to make to go completely to waste. And I did really like the sleeves on the shirt. So I used my scoop tee pattern with the New Look sleeves to make a quick top.

The sleeves are a tad baggy. I will take them in a tiny bit if I ever make a shirt with these sleeves again. But overall, it was a very quick sew and it’s super simple and I like it. I am a sucker for shirring, that’s for shirr. Oh I’m so funny!

Today, I started keeping a sewing notebook. I don’t know why I’ve never done this before! I always think I’ll remember the little tweaks I make to a pattern or the tricks I pick up for a certain project but I never do remember. So I’m planning on writing down the important things about each item I make. I think it will be very helpful.

My Favorite

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Awhile ago I bought some rayon fabric that I thought would look really good as t-shirts for my boys. But after the first shirt was about half finished, I had to admit that rayon doesn’t work well for boys’ clothes (it’s too drapey) and abandon the project.

So I inherited the fabric. I already used part of it to make a maxi skirt a few weeks ago. This week I used the rest of it to make a top for me. I shirred the sides of the shirt by serging rubber elastic into the side seams of the shirt and tugging the elastic as I serged it in.

I think this is my favorite top I’ve made so far. I broke it in today by wearing it on our family hike.

About halfway up the butte we were hiking, we realized our little doggie Lucy wasn’t going to make it. She was so hot and panting so hard that Jon took Owen and Lucy back to the car and I went up the rest of the way with Seth and Ezra.

We saw some fun stuff on the way up.

A little lizard hiding in the sticks.

A pretty dragonfly.

We made it to the top and it was really too bad that Jon wasn’t there to take the pictures. When I’m in charge of taking the pictures, they turn out like this:

I did get a cute one of Ezra though.

On the way down, it had cooled off enough that the trail wasn’t hot anymore and we could take our shoes off and hike down barefoot. Oh my goodness, there is something exhilarating about bare feet moving through dirt. It feels so wonderful to dig your toes in deep.

Now the boys are asleep and Jon is watching Star Trek (he’s a total nerd) and I’m eating apples and chocolate while I sit next to him on the couch. But shhhh! Don’t tell my kids I’m eating food out of the kitchen.

A Week Of Sewing

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I love looking back at the week and seeing what I’ve accomplished in my sewing world. Last week was eventful! Besides getting my patterns finished, I also:

1. Drafted a pattern for some shorts for my 4 year old and then made a pair to test my pattern out.

I drafted a pattern for some shorts for him a few weeks ago, but they came out all wrong. They had too much fabric at the top and they looked ridiculous on his skinny little body. I didn’t want to try again for awhile, but this week I decided it was time.

They turned out much better this time. I was going for something similar to these ready to wear shorts:

Don’t mind my feet in the bottom of the photo ha ha.

and this is what I ended up getting:

Cute little closed-eyes-boy.

Pants in action.

I love easy projects like little boys’ shorts. I will be making more of these for him!

2. I guess it was a week for shorts, because I finished a pair for my baby, too. I used this pattern from made-by-rae.com/. I have made these pants a bundle of times because we cloth diaper our baby and these pants have a panel in the rear to accommodate big cloth diapered bums.

I adjusted the pattern for shorts. I also added some length to the top because I love to use wide sports elastic in my boys’ bottoms.

3. I made yet another t-shirt out of my scoop pattern. This one is made out of fabric from girlcharlee.com. I love their fabric! They have such cute prints and I’ve been pleased with all the fabric I’ve ordered from them.

I hemmed the bottom of this shirt with a turned under hem, I made the sleeves a little longer, and left the flowers off. It’s like a whole different shirt!

Floral Scoop Tee Pattern

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My very first pattern is available today. I’m pretty excited to have it done! I bet my husband is too, because he does all the hard stuff for me. I draft my patterns on paper and he digitizes them for me.

The pattern is available in my etsy shop, and will soon be available right here on the blog too.

Thanks for looking!

Little Polka Dots

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I finished another scoop t over the weekend.

My friend Michelle (you can look at her cute patterns here) hooked me up with some fabric from Riley Blake and that is what this shirt is made out of.

I love this shirt pattern because the neckline is high enough that I don’t have to wear an undershirt. It is way too hot to wear two shirts during the summer, even in Idaho!

Speaking of the neckline, I finally figured out a way to do my collars that works for me. It’s based off this clip here from threadsmagazine.com.

First, I cut a long strip from the collar fabric that is 1 1/2″ wide. I made sure the length of the strip was running perpendicular to the selvage, so that the biggest amount of stretch in the fabric was running parallel to the long side of the strip.

Then, I pressed the strip in half lengthwise.

Then I laid my shirt out like this:

I started at the center back of the shirt and pinned the collar to the right side of the shirt, aligning the raw edges. Then I stretched the collar gently and pinned again further down the shirt. I did this all the way around, stretching more aggressively at the two deepest parts of the scoop. That way the collar lays flat against the body when the shirt is finished.

Then, I marked where I needed to cut off the excess fabric on the strip, making sure to add a seam allowance on both sides of the strip. I cut the strip down to size, then unfolded it and serged the two short ends together to make a circle. Then I pressed the circle in half lengthwise, just like I did when it was a strip.

Then I pinned it to my shirt again in the very same way as I did before.

Then, I basted the collar to the shirt on my sewing machine with a quarter inch seam allowance and the longest stitch length I have. I gently stretched the collar out to fit the length of the shirt as I sewed.

This step was just to check that everything lined up. That way I could easily rip it out and start over if it wasn’t right.

After I knew everything was great, I serged around the collar with a 3/8 inch seam allowance. You could also sew with a stretch stitch if you didn’t have a serger.

Then I pressed the collar with the seam facing toward the bottom of the shirt.

And then, I used my coverstitch machine to topstitch the seam down just below the collar. You could also topstitch it down with a sewing machine and a stretch stitch.

And that is it! Collars are not too bad!